CJI says will ‘consider’ plea to revive NJAC, end Collegium system

Chief Justice of India Surya Kant on Wednesday (November 26, 2025) orally said the court would consider a petition seeking to revive the National Judicial Appointments Commission and bring an end to the Collegium system of judicial appointments to the constitutional courts of the country.

The petition, which arraigns the Chief Justice of India and even the Supreme Court Collegium as respondents along with the Union Government and a clutch of political parties, submitted the striking down of the NJAC by the apex court was a “great wrong because it meant substitution of the will of the people by the opinion of the four judges”.

The oral mentioning of the petition was made by advocate Mathews J. Nedumpara, who is the lead petitioner, coincided with the 76th Constitution Day.

The NJAC, which briefly gave the government an equal role along with the judiciary in the appointment of judges to the constitutional courts, was struck down by the Supreme Court in 2015 as unconstitutional.

The petition urged the 2015 judgment to be rendered void ab initio as it revived the collegium system which was a “synonym for nepotism and favouritism”

“Since the Collegium came into existence, appointments to higher judiciary have been a ‘riddle wrapped in a mystery, inside an enigma’ to borrow an expression from Winston Churchill. There has been no transparency whatsoever, at all. Even within the judiciary there has been lamentation. The Parliament which represents the will of the people, in exercise of its constituent power, had enacted 99th Constitutional Amendment Act and the NJAC Act. However, the enactments were “quashed and set aside” by this court, reducing the Parliament to an inferior tribunal,” the petition said.